English and silence

3The English language distinguishes itself from French and from many other languages by its use of silence. Silence between sentences, between words, and even between the phonemes of words. An example of the latter would be in the sentence ‘I think that is extraordinary’, where a pause is inserted thus: ‘I think that is extra-(pause)-ordinary’ to emphasise the extraordinariness of what the statement is referring to.

4So highly regarded is the role of silence in English that it has been elevated to an art form, thanks to the plays of Harold Pinter. “The Pinter Pause” (Rayner, 1988) is used to great effect in his plays, particularly in the creation of mystery and menace. It may seem obvious what silence is, but when Pinter’s plays can break silence down into four categories—“slight pause”, “pause”, “silence”, and “long silence” (Isherwood, 2005)—it is evident that silence is something more than just nothingness between sounds. We mention Pinter here because it is his texts which have, to a large extent, inspired the texts which are used in the activities found in our theatre workshops.

5People who are not used to silence find it very difficult to manage, and French speakers, who are used to a language where meaning is conveyed by vocabulary, grammar and syntax, find it particularly difficult to incorporate it in their speech. When we try to introduce silence, in the form of pauses, the complaint often heard from learners is that the meaning of the sentence will be lost—even in a sentence where the pausing corresponds to written punctuation in the form of a comma or semicolon. Many students demand a lot of reassurance on this point.

Silence as punctuation

6Written communication uses punctuation to help the reader. Without full stops and commas, text can be extremely difficult to follow. Writers such as the Irishman James Joyce and the Portuguese writer José Saramago have employed the technique of using little or no punctuation, but it takes some adjustment on the part of the reader before they can follow such writing.

7In speech, pausing plays a similar role to that of punctuation in written communication, but can be considered to be even more important. With writing, the reader can go back over a passage that they have not understood and reread it. William Faulkner’s advice to readers who had difficulty with his punctuation was ‘Read it four times’ (Stein, 1956). The listener does not have that opportunity. In this respect, it is essential to remember that communication, as we repeat all the time, is a two-way process; the role of the listener has to be taken into consideration. Silence provides time to register what is being said, so the listener will not be left behind by the discourse. In addition, silence provides the opportunity to anticipate what is going to be said. This is an unconscious reflex taking place all the time and something which plays its part in understanding. If the listener does not have the time to anticipate, comprehension becomes a little more difficult.

8Creating anticipation in oratory is nearly always considered in terms of the construction of the language used—the lexical weave. But that construction can always—should always—include silence, for the reason just given; silence helps the listener to follow what is being said for the one and only time. It separates information within the sentence, thus facilitating the listener’s ability to assimilate it.

A silent praxis

9The Silent Experience is the first of THEMPPO’s two praxes mentioned above, when we wrote of another approach in the language classroom. It refers to everything that is happening within the body, before and during speech, which is linked to the production of speech but does not produce an audible sound. It encourages the learner to subjectify the language learning experience by placing their own body at the source of what is happening. It is a necessary contribution to the scaffolding of oral production. We have identified the Silent Experience as being a crucial stage in the establishment of body awareness. It allows the learner to become aware of the interdependency between the spoken word and the physiological and psycho-affective dimensions of the body.

10Linklater drew our attention to the fact that awareness of this link has been in recession ever since language started to appear in a written form. At this point in its evolution, language took a first step towards becoming exterior to the body. This distancing has accelerated over the past couple of decades with the arrival of tablets and smartphones. On the upside, these inventions open up the possibility of immediate communication on a global scale. But in doing so, they take us outside our own bodies. Thus, it seems necessary to restore the link between the body and the spoken word. Linklater (2006, p. 328) speaks of ‘the need to restore the direct neurophysiological pathways for the voice to travel through the body, arousing physical, sensory, sensual, and emotional response.’

11Thus, the Silent Experience is a cognisance in which language is initially absent, and feeling is prioritised. Exercises used in the exploration of this theme allow the learner to feel and listen to the sensations within the body and to experience the awareness of what is happening. Posture, breathing and articulation (jaw, lips, tongue, soft palate) are all included in this focus.

Active silence

12The silence in work on posture and in breathing exercises is an attentive or active silence. It is not the passive silence that we have made reference to earlier, in speaking of the amount of time that the learner spends in a quiescent state in the language classroom.

13Prior to and throughout breathing exercises, active silence is used to monitor the body posture. We have seen in an earlier chapter how the use of tablets and mobile telephones can have a negative effect on posture. So it is important to show how good posture can have a positive effect on the confidence of the speaker by strengthening floor anchoring and physical stability. In addition, postural changes can be shown to affect breathing. For example, transferring weight onto one foot, rather than having weight equally distributed on both feet, negatively affects breathing by reducing the opening of the rib cage on the in-breath.

14When we focus specifically on breathing, active silence allows the individual to become aware of the central role of the diaphragm. This takes place during time spent in regular natural breathing, preferably with the eyes closed. Following on from this, consciousness of the air passing between the lips on the outgoing breath reveals breathing as the carrier of sound. That which may appear as a simple and obvious observation is, in fact, the first step in allowing the mind and the body to become (re)connected in oral production.

Effective silence

15Exercises on articulation introduce effective silence. Here, the individual actively uses silence to change an activity in which there is normally sound. The silence effects change. In silent articulation of phoneme exercises, jaw, lip, tongue and soft palate movements can all be more acutely experienced thanks to the absence of sound. These exercises are then extended to silent reading aloud, in which the linking up of phonemes allows the learner to become more aware of what is happening in the shaping of larger utterances.

16Teachers may think that the idea of encouraging deliberate silence in oral communication work in the language classroom runs counter to good pedagogical practice. However, neuroscience has identified the act of silent reading as a link to phonology and emotion within language (Perrone-Bertolotti et al., 2016). It has been suggested that, like speaking aloud, the inner voice (or inner speech) can have a vocal quality, with variations in rhythm and pitch (McKay, 1992). More recently, neuroimaging with fMRI scans has confirmed the presence of the inner voice during silent reading, which can include variations in intonation and rhythm (Loevenbruck et al., 2018).

Luscious mouth feel

17The expression “luscious mouth feel” can be found in advertising everything from chocolate to cream cheese to bourbon whiskey. So, what is it doing here? It seems to us that it is a wonderful, indeed luscious, description of the way that certain words can be experienced in the mouth. Whilst the effect may not be as powerful as that of the case reported of Englishman James Wannerton (Greenwood, 2015), who experiences lexical-gustatory synaesthesia, in which the reading or hearing of words produces different tastes in the mouth, the articulation of certain words can be experienced as a pleasing physical sensation in the buccal cavity. For the authors of this book, the words ‘discombobulate’, ‘pulchritude’ or ‘mellifluous’ are just some of the words which have this effect (see also Dutton, 2015 and McElhatton, 2016). This pleasant sensation is emphasised when the word is spoken aloud without sound before being spoken aloud with sound. In asking learners to experience this pleasurable aspect of the enunciation of words, we speak of the degustation or tasting of words. Such encouragement of an aesthetic relationship with words will be reflected in the interest that the speaker imparts to what is being said. If the speaker appears to take pleasure in what they are saying (not to be confused with liking the sound of their own voice!), the listener is more likely to enjoy listening to them. On a humorous note, it should be noted that the classic Monty Python ‘Tinny and Woody Words’ sketch has its source in the pleasure that can be experienced in saying certain words.